Location-Based Prefetch and Participant-Based Prefetch
To reduce the mobile data usage, information associated with future events is prefetched via an inexpensive mass-data transfer link (e.g., Wi-Fi, Ethernet, or off-peak mobile broadband) and does not need to be fetched via an expensive mobile communication link (e.g., mobile broadband) during normal usage. Location-based prefetch and participant-based prefetch can leverage the existing infrastructures of location-based services (LBS) and social networking services (SNS). Because they provide a more reliable prediction of future events than those guessed from past events, schedule events managed by a calendaring application is primarily used to predict future events.
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This is a continuation of an application “Location-Based Prefetch and Participant-Based Prefetch”, application Ser. No. 13/856,605, filed Apr. 4, 2013, which claims benefits of a provisional application “Location-Based Prefetching System”, Application Ser. No. 61/620,979, filed Apr. 5, 2012.
BACKGROUND1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of electronic system, and more particularly to mobile communication between an electronic device and Internet.
2. Prior Arts
Mobile Internet combines mobile communication and Internet. It allows Internet access from a mobile device over a wide geographic area. Consumers can purchase a mobile broadband modem (e.g., a 3G USB dongle) or other equipment to connect their computer (e.g., PC, laptop) to the Internet. In addition, many mobile devices (e.g., smart-phone, tablet) have built-in support for mobile broadband. Compared with fixed-line Internet access, mobile Internet access incurs significantly higher on-line expenses.
Consumers naturally desire to have low-cost or even free mobile Internet access. In the past, attempts have been made to provide low-cost or even free fixed-line Internet access, particularly dial-up Internet access. To get free dial-up Internet access from service providers such as Netzero, a user runs a client application that makes an advertising window visible and on top of other windows throughout the entire on-line session. By displaying advertisements for third parties to users, Netzero derives revenue and uses that revenue to discount the users' on-line expenses.
The Netzero's method of discounting on-line expenses for dial-up Internet access cannot be applied to mobile Internet access. Because dial-up Internet access is charged by connection time, advertisements can be sent to a user during a dial-up Internet session without incurring extra charges. However, because mobile Internet access is charged by data usage, sending advertisements to a user during a mobile Internet session increases data usage and therefore, incurs additional on-line expenses.
OBJECTS AND ADVANTAGESIt is a principle object of the present invention to provide low-cost or even free mobile Internet access.
It is a further object of the present invention to reduce mobile data usage.
It is a further object of the present invention to improve responsiveness of mobile Internet access.
It is a further object of the present invention to improve the prefetch efficiency.
It is a further object of the present invention to better predict future events. It is a further object of the present invention to provide an easy-to-implement prefetch system.
It is a further object of the present invention to lower the cost of prefetch hardware.
In accordance with these and other objects of the present invention, the present invention discloses system and method for location-based prefetch and participant-based prefetch.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONThe present invention discloses a prefetch system supporting location-based prefetch and/or participant-based prefetch. It comprises a mobile device, a prefetch server and an information network. During a prefetch session, a mobile device predicts events that will likely occur to a user (i.e., future events) and transmits the future event information to a prefetch server. The prefetch server selects information associated with future events (i.e., event specific information) and transmits the event specific information back to the mobile device via an inexpensive mass-data transfer link (e.g., Wi-Fi, Ethernet or off-peak mobile broadband). The mobile device stores the prefetched information as part of internal web. During a mobile Internet session, the requested information is only retrieved from the information network (i.e., external web) via an expensive mobile communication link (e.g., mobile broadband) if it is not in the internal web. Hence, mobile data usage is reduced.
During the prefetch session, if a web site is associated with a future event, the prefetch server transmits its web object, which contains a collection of web pages from this web site, to the mobile device. Depending on the prefetch service a web site subscribes to, different amount of web pages are included in its web object. For example, the web object may include only the front page of the web site if a basic prefetch service is subscribed to; and the web object may include more web pages if a higher level of prefetch service is subscribed to. Because a web site are more likely viewed by a user if more of its web pages are prefetched, the web-site owner has incentive to pay a fee to subscribe to a higher level of prefetch service. This fee, together with advertisement revenue, can be used to discount the mobile Internet access charge. Eventually, they will lead to free mobile Internet access.
For location-based prefetch, the prefetched information is associated with the locations of future events (i.e., future locations, which could be different from the current location of the mobile device) and is location specific information. On the other hand, for participant-based prefetch, the prefetched information is associated with the participants of future events (i.e., future participants, which could be different from the owner of the mobile device) and is participant specific information. Because they can leverage the existing infrastructures for location-based services (LBS) and social networking services (SNS), location-based and participant-based prefetch are easy to implement and may lower the cost of prefetch hardware.
To improve prefetch efficiency, future events need to be predicted as accurately as possible. Because they provide a more reliable prediction of future events than guessed events (i.e., future events guessed from past events), scheduled events managed by a calendaring application are primarily used to predict future events. For a scheduled future event, at least one of its elements (e.g., time, location, participant or action) could be different from that of the current event. Only when scheduled events are not specified in the calendaring application, guessed events are used to predict future events.
It should be noted that all the drawings are schematic and not drawn to scale. Relative dimensions and proportions of parts of the device structures in the figures have been shown exaggerated or reduced in size for the sake of clarity and convenience in the drawings. The same reference symbols are generally used to refer to corresponding or similar features in the different embodiments.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTSThose of ordinary skills in the art will realize that the following description of the present invention is illustrative only and is not intended to be in any way limiting. Other embodiments of the invention will readily suggest themselves to such skilled persons from an examination of the within disclosure.
In the present invention, the symbol “I” means a relationship of “and” or “or”. For example, “location/participant” means “location only”, or “participant only”, or “location and participant”; “location/participant/action” means “location only”, or “participant only”, or “action only”, or “location and participant”, or “participant and action”, or “action and location”, or “location and participant and action”.
Referring now to
The information network 00 works as an external web for the mobile device 10, with respect to the internal web 30 of
The mobile device 10 includes virtually any electronic device comprising a mobile communication interface. As such, the device 10 may range widely in terms of capabilities and features. It could be a cellular phone, a tablet and the like. It could also be a computer (e.g., netbook, notebook, laptop, PC) with either an internal or external mobile broadband modem. Computer is suitable for prefetch because its hard-disk drive (HDD) can store a large amount of prefetched information.
The prefetch server 50 stores a prefetch database. It could be a dedicated server, a network of servers, or a part of peer-to-peer network. Peer-to-peer (P2P) refers to a computer network in which each computer in the network can act as a client or server for the other computers in the network, allowing shared access to files and peripherals without the need for a central server. P2P is attractive to prefetch because the prefetched information is common to many users. It should be appreciated that the prefetch server 50 could be part of the information network 00 or part of the mobile device 10.
The mobile communication link 120 many include any wide-area wireless connection. Examples include mobile broadband, WiMax and satellite-based link. Among them, mobile broadband is most popular. It uses cellular signals to access Internet. Mobile broadband can be realized through 2G (e.g., GSM), 2.5G (e.g., GPRS), 3G (e.g., WCDMA), 4G (e.g., LTE) and future access networks. In general, the mobile communication link 120 is expensive.
Because the mobile device 10 prefetches information from a large number of web sites 08 (e.g., from all web sites associated with a location), the amount of prefetched data is so large that these data are referred to as mass data and the communication link to transfer these mass data is referred to as mass-data transfer link 110, 110*, 130. They provide an inexpensive way to transfer mass data. A primary example of mass-data transfer link is a non-mobile communication link such as LAN (local-area network) or WAN (wide-area network) link. Among them, LAN (e.g., Wi-Fi or Ethernet) has the best potential because it is ubiquitous and provides mostly un-metered high-speed Internet connection. Another example of mass-data transfer link is a mobile communication link operated during off-peak hours, e.g., an off-peak mobile broadband link. Because the mobile data charge during off-peak hours is much lower than during peak hours, the off-peak mobile communication link can be used to transfer a large amount of data. A further example of mass-data transfer link is a broadcast/multicast link, which uses digital TV/digital radio/cellular signals.
Referring now to
The memory 20 could be a solid-state memory (e.g., flash), or hard-disk drive. It stores at least the following software components: an Internet application 22, an internal web 30 and a prefetch application 40. The Internet application 22 is operatively coupled with the mobile communication interface 12 (optionally also with the mass-data transfer interface 18). It may be, but is not limited to, a browser application, a messaging tool and the like.
The internal web 30 works as a cache for the Internet application 22. It comprises information prefetched during the prefetch sessions. Because it is much faster to access the internal web 30 than the external web 00, the internal web 30 can greatly improve the responsiveness of the mobile Internet access. On the other hand, because the memory 20, especially the solid-state memory, has a limited capacity, a high prefetch efficiency is desired, i.e., there is a high likelihood that the prefetched information will be accessed by the user during a mobile Internet session.
The prefetch application 40 is operatively coupled with the mass-data transfer interface 18 of the mobile device 10. Its primary function is to predict future events, i.e., events that will likely occur to a user. In order to have a high prefetch efficiency, future events need to be predicted as accurately as possible. It should be appreciated that the prefetch application 40 can also select information to be prefetched in certain embodiments. More details of the prefetch application 40 are disclosed in
As illustrated in
The prediction module 48 has two inputs. One input is from a calendaring application 42, which manages scheduled events 44, i.e., future events in the user schedule. The other input is from the event store, which stores past events 46, i.e., events that occurred to the user in the past.
The calendaring application 42 is an application software that provides a user with an electronic version of a calendar, as well as an appointment book. Calendaring is a standard feature of many PDAs, smart-phones, tablets and the like. The software may be a local package designed for individual use (e.g., Windows Calendar) or may be a networked package that allows for the sharing of information between users (e.g., Mozilla Sunbird, Windows Live Calendar, Google Calendar). The calendaring data may be stored locally in the mobile device 10. Alternatively, the calendaring data may be stored remotely. For example, the calendaring data is stored in a cellular phone, while the mobile device 10 is a computer with mobile broadband capability. These two devices synchronize the calendaring data whenever possible.
Past events 46 are a collection of event history, on-line activity history, location history and the like. The event history is collected from the past events in the user schedule managed by the calendaring application. The on-line activity history is accumulated in a statistical database by collecting the type of Internet data the user previously requested and accessed. The location history could be the GPS record of the user's cellular phone.
The prediction module 48 predicts future events 90 using both scheduled events 44 and past events 46. Because they provide a more reliable prediction of future events 90 than guessed events (i.e., future events guessed from past events 46), scheduled events 44 managed by a calendaring application 42 are primarily used to predict future events 90. Only when scheduled events 44 are not specified in the calendaring application 42, guessed events are used to predict future events 90.
The following is a concrete example describing the above method. From the calendaring application 42, a user (P1) has a scheduled meeting (action A3) with another person (P2) at location L3 at 1 pm-2 pm. However, the calendaring application 42 does not specify any other events for this day. In this situation, past events 46 are used to best guess future events 90. As the user's habits are working (action A1) at location L1 at 9 am-12 pm, 1 pm-5 pm, having lunch (action A2) at location L2 at 12 pm-1 pm, this information can be used to fill the time gap in the user schedule. Accordingly, the future events 90 for this day are as follows: (9 am-12 pm; L1; P1; A1); (12 pm-1 pm; L2; P1; A2), (1 pm-2 pm; L3; P1, P2; A3), and (2 pm-5 pm; L1; P1; A1). Apparently, elements of future events may be defined differently in different prefetch systems.
Referring now to
As illustrated in
The prefetch database 60 includes a directory file and a large number of web objects. The directory file contains tags of each web object. These tags are categorized into time tag, location tag, participant tag, action tags and others. Hereinafter, the tags of a web object can be expressed as {time tag; location tag; participant tag; action tag}.
The following is a concrete example describing the tags of a web object, which is associated with a web site of restaurant R. Its tags are {; L1, L2; P2, P3; A2}, which means the restaurant's web site does not change with time; the restaurant is located at locations L1 and L2; the people working at the restaurant are P2 and P3; its major business is A2 (e.g., lunch). Apparently, tags may be defined differently in different prefetch systems.
Each web object contains a collection of web pages from a distinct web site. Depending on the prefetch service a web site subscribes to, different amount of web pages are included in its web object. For example, the web object may include only the front page of the web site if a basic prefetch service is subscribed to; and the web object may include more web pages if a higher level of prefetch service is subscribed to. Because a web site will be more likely viewed by a user when more web pages are prefetched to the mobile device 10, the web-site owner has incentive to pay a fee to subscribe to a higher level of prefetch service. This fee, together with advertisement revenue, can be used to discount the mobile Internet access charge. Eventually, they will lead to free mobile Internet access. The selection module 52 selects web objects from the prefetch database 60.
Based on a predetermined prefetch style, selected future event information is used as selection criterion. For example, if the prefetch style is location (i.e., location-based prefetch), then the location 94 of the future event 90 is used as selection criterion; if the prefetch style is participant (i.e., participant-based prefetch), then the participant 96 of the future event 90 is used as selection criterion; if the prefetch style is location and action (i.e., “location+action”-based prefetch), then the location 94 and action 98 of the future event 90 are used as selection criteria.
Once the selection criterion is determined, a selecting process is carried out by comparing the tags of the web objects with the selection criterion. If there is a match, the web object is selected and then transmitted to the mobile device 10 by the prefetch server 50. Using the same examples as described above and assuming location-based prefetch, for the future event of (12 pm-1 pm; L2; P1; A2), the selection criterion is L2 for location; thus, the web object for the restaurant R, whose tags are {“ ”; L1, L2; P2, P3; A2}, will be selected and prefetched.
Besides the selection criterion derived from future events, other selection criterion may be applied. One selection criterion is web-page popularity. For example, a web page may be selected based on its click-through rate, i.e., the number of users that have selected the web page. Another selection criterion is the user's demographic profile, which includes grow-up location, age, occupation, gender, marital status, school information, work information, interests and hobbies. The demographic profile may include a set of key words, along with a score for each key word denoting its estimated importance. Then a score of the web object may be determined by evaluating the match between the demographic profile and the tags of the web object.
Among various prefetch styles, the location-based prefetch and participant-based prefetch are particularly advantageous. Because they can leverage the existing infrastructures for location-based services (LBS) and social networking services (SNS), the location-based prefetch and participant-based prefetch are easy to implement and may lower the cost of prefetch hardware.
LBS use location and time data as control variables for computer programs. An LBS server receives the current location of a mobile device, selects information based on the current location and transmits location specific information to the mobile device. As GPS-enabled smart-phones and tablets gain popularity, LBS becomes more and more important. It provides valuable services to mobile users. For example, LBS can send coupons or advertisements to mobile users based on their current location.
As illustrated in
SNS is an on-line service, platform, or site that focuses on facilitating the building of social networks or social relations among people. An SNS server stores the user information (e.g., profile, social links) and provides a variety of additional services. Take Facebook as an example. A user may add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups, organized by workplace, school, or other characteristics.
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While illustrative embodiments have been shown and described, it would be apparent to those skilled in the art that may more modifications than that have been mentioned above are possible without departing from the inventive concepts set forth therein. The invention, therefore, is not to be limited except in the spirit of the appended claims.
Claims
1. A mobile device for supporting location-based prefetch, comprising:
- a mass-data transfer interface for retrieving location specific information associated with a future event via a mass-data transfer link prior to said future event, wherein said location specific information provides information associated with at least a future location of said future event, said future location being different from the current location of said mobile device;
- a memory for storing said location specific information;
- a mobile communication interface for retrieving requested information via a mobile communication link during said future event if said requested information is absent in said memory.
2. The mobile device according to claim 1, wherein said mass-data transfer link is a non-mobile communication link.
3. The mobile device according to claim 2, wherein said non-mobile communication link is a local-area network (LAN) link or a wide-area network (WAN) link.
4. The mobile device according to claim 1, wherein said location specific information is retrieved via another mobile communication link during off-peak hours.
5. The mobile device according to claim 1, wherein said mobile communication link is a mobile broadband link.
6. The mobile device according to claim 1, wherein said future event is a scheduled event.
7. The mobile device according to claim 1, wherein said future event is a guessed event.
8. The mobile device according to claim 1, wherein said location specific information further provides information associated with at least one of a future time, a future participant and a future action of said future event.
9. A mobile device for supporting participant-based prefetch, comprising:
- a mass-data transfer interface for retrieving participant specific information associated with a future event via a mass-data transfer link prior to said future event, wherein said participant specific information provides information associated with at least a future participant of said future event, said future participant being different from the owner of said mobile device;
- a memory for storing said participant specific information;
- a mobile communication interface for retrieving requested information via a mobile communication link during said future event if said requested information is absent in said memory.
10. The mobile device according to claim 9, wherein said mass-data transfer link is a non-mobile communication link.
11. The mobile device according to claim 10, wherein said non-mobile communication link is a local-area network (LAN) link or a wide-area network (WAN) link.
12. The mobile device according to claim 9, wherein said participant specific information is retrieved via another mobile communication link during off-peak hours.
13. The mobile device according to claim 9, wherein said mobile communication link is a mobile broadband link.
14. The mobile device according to claim 9, wherein said future event is a scheduled event.
15. The mobile device according to claim 9, wherein said future event is a guessed event.
16. The mobile device according to claim 9, wherein said participant specific information further provides information associated with at least one of a future time, a future location and a future action of said future event.
17. A mobile device, comprising:
- a memory for storing at least a scheduled future event; and
- a communication interface for retrieving event specific information via a communication link prior to said scheduled future event, wherein said event specific information provides information associated with at least an element of said scheduled future event, said element of said scheduled future event being different from said element of the current event.
18. The mobile device according to claim 17, wherein said element is a time, a location, a participant, or an action.
19. The mobile device according to claim 18, further comprising a mobile communication interface for retrieving requested information via a mobile communication link if said requested information is absent in said mobile device.
20. The mobile device according to claim 19, wherein said communication link costs substantially less to transfer the same amount of data than said mobile communication link.
Type: Application
Filed: Mar 3, 2015
Publication Date: Jun 25, 2015
Applicant: CHENGDU HAICUN IP TECHNOLOGY LLC (ChengDu)
Inventor: Guobiao ZHANG (Corvallis, OR)
Application Number: 14/637,376